International agreements

International agreements are the main form of external lawmaking by the European Union (EU). According to Article 216 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the EU can conclude agreements with one or more non-EU countries or international organisations, provided the conclusion of an agreement:

is necessary to achieve, within the context of the EU’s policies, one of the objectives referred to in the treaties; or
is provided for in a legally binding EU act; or
is likely to affect common rules or alter their scope.

When negotiating and signing an international agreement, the EU must respect the limits of its competences and the general principles on the EU’s external action, as set out in Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union.

Article 218 of the TFEU establishes a general procedure for the exercise of treaty-making powers.

In negotiating and concluding international agreements, the EU, which has legal personality, either has:

exclusive competence for negotiating and concluding the agreements alone – in which case Article 3 of the TFEU specifies the areas in which the EU has exclusive competence (they include trade agreements); or
shared competence to do so with its Member States, if they are also involved in concluding the agreements – in which case the areas of shared competence are listed in Article 4 of the TFEU (they include fields such as consumer protection or environment); agreements relating to such fields are known as mixed agreements.

International agreements concluded by the EU are binding on its institutions and Member States, and the latter are thus obligated to adhere to their provisions. They are an integral part of EU law and fall into a category of their own, being separate from primary and secondary legislation. They can have direct effect and their legal force is superior to that of secondary legislation, which must therefore comply with them.

Where the EU has exclusive competence, the Council of the European Union draws up a mandate for the European Commission, which then negotiates the agreement, except in the field of foreign and security policy, where the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy represents the EU. Once the negotiations have been completed and, depending on the kind of the agreement, the European Parliament has given its consent or was consulted, the Council signs and concludes agreements on the EU’s behalf.

In the case of an agreement in a field in which the EU shares competence with its Member States, representatives from Member States also have to give their mandates for negotiations to begin.

The most common types of international agreement include association agreements, free trade agreements, economic partnership agreements and partnership and cooperation agreements.